David Aylsworth

Holly Johnson Gallery in Dallas is pleased to present A Dish You Would Wish You Had Took, an exhibition of thirteen recent paintings by David Aylsworth. This is the artist’s sixth solo show with the gallery, and it opens on Saturday, April 3rd with an open house from 11:00 a.m. to 5:00 p.m.

Throughout his career, David Aylsworth has deftly embraced ambiguity in the painterly process, one where the resulting canvas lives on not so much as an end product but more as a space for an ongoing adventure. Even characterizing Aylsworth’s painting as purely nonobjective is not exactly right; canted horizon lines, overlapping forms and wide expanses admit an ambiguous depth into his compositions. The seeming nonchalance radiating from his shapes and palette is in fact a purposeful irreverence. Imperfection is embedded in his method, as edges are never quite smooth, colors are scumbled or applied wet-on-wet, and surfaces expose thinly veiled revisions. The exuberance of Aylsworth’s painting is a survivor’s vitality, one that sees adventure in uncertainty, and values ingenuity over faultlessness.

Alison de Lima Greene of the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston recently noted, “Over the past three decades, David Aylsworth has built up a remarkable body of paintings that are sensual, humorous, at times wry, and always bursting with love. Grounding his pictorial vocabulary in the non-objective language of such early modernists as Marsden Hartley and Arthur Dove, Aylsworth has also remained steadfast in his commitment to finding fresh inspiration in the world around him as he consistently renews his painting practice through trial, error, and resolution.”

Aylsworth (born 1966, Tiffin, OH) earned a BFA from Kent State University (1989) and was a Core Program Artist Resident, Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, (1989-1991). The Galveston Art Center organized, So Elsa Maxwellish. which traveled to Texas A&M University in Commerce and the University of Arkansas in Fayetteville (2001). In 2010, he received an Artadia Award Houston. Aylsworth was the subject of a ten-year survey, Either/And, organized by the Art Museum of Southeast Texas, Beaumont, TX, and traveled to the Galveston Arts Center (2017).  His paintings were included in Painting: A Love Story at the Contemporary Arts Museum, Houston (2014) and Working in the Abstract: Rethinking the Literal, Glassell School of Art, Museum of Fine Arts, Houston (2011). Additionally, many articles about his work have been published in noteworthy publications such as ArtLies, Art in America, The Dallas Morning News, and Fort Worth Star-Telegram.  His work is in the collections of the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, the Dallas Museum of Art, The Art Museum of South Texas in Corpus Christi, The Art Museum of South East Texas in Beaumont, and the El Paso Museum of Art. He currently resides in Houston. 

Holly Johnson Gallery is located at 1845 East Levee Street #100 in Dallas, Texas 75207. Gallery hours are 11 a.m. to 5 p.m., Tuesday through Saturday, and by appointment. For information call 214-369-0169, or info@hollyjohnsongallery.com, or visit www.hollyjohnsongallery.com.

Image: David Aylsworth, Brazen Overtures, 2018, Oil on canvas, 14 x 18 inches